Representatives for Selma Blair are pushing back on public accounts of a Los Angeles–to–New York Delta flight that ended with the actor facing assault charges. They argue that a neurological episode, not aggression, was behind what happened.
According to The Associated Press, the statement released Friday insisted that “Selma did not intend to harm anyone.” It also denied claims that she tried to open the aircraft’s door.
Authorities allege that Blair, 54, injured two flight attendants during Sunday’s flight to JFK. They say she then kicked a police officer escorting her to a hospital and a nurse after she arrived. She has pleaded not guilty to two state assault counts involving the officer and the nurse, is free on bail, and is due back in court in January. The FBI has separately issued her a federal assault notice over the in-flight allegations, AP reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement official.
Blair, who has multiple sclerosis, made her diagnosis public in 2018. Her representatives called it “outrageous” that anyone would question whether she has the disease, though they did not say who had done so. They said her physical recovery since then has been remarkable. They added that she still has difficult days and lives with constant pain.
The statement also said Blair has pseudobulbar affect, a neurological disorder linked to her MS. According to her team, the condition directly affects how a medical episode can look to strangers. They said this is also why she travels with a service dog that stays with her at all times, and that authorities removed the dog from her care.
Her representatives described her as a tireless champion for disability rights and for people living with MS.
Officials have said little about what happened on board. AP reported that the pilot asked for medical staff to meet the plane at the gate to treat bite wounds and a bloody nose, but told the tower ambulances weren’t necessary.
Blair’s team also criticised media coverage, saying it had relied on police accounts and on a 2016 in-flight incident. Blair had attributed that earlier episode to mixing alcohol with medication.
Friday’s statement said the public version of the more recent events has “been built almost entirely on a police statement and a decade-old headline.”
“A handful of journalists have taken the time to report on Selma as a human being rather than a headline, and we are grateful to them,” the statement said. “But fair reporting has been the exception, and in the space left by our silence, speculation has hardened into something being treated as fact.”
With inputs from Associated Press